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A HIGH-BROW THEORIZING ON GIRLS' MORALS
" FROM A'CHICAGO UNIVERSITYVIEWPOINT
Our conviction that there is some
thing seriously the matter with the
'University of Chicago has been duly
strengthened by Sophonisba P.
Breckinridge.
Sophonisba is a dean of Rockefel
ler's educational joint, and she spoke
last nigh before the Social Service
Institute at Milwaukee.
Her subject was delinquent girls
and how to deal with them. ' Here is
part of what she said:
"Girls who go wrong cannot be
good if they try. They cannot help
themselves going wrong. They are
high grade imbeciles-. It does no good
to put them on probation and send
them back to degraded homes. For
they cannot be good."
This is a truly Christian viewpoint,
as anyone may perceive. According
to it, if a girl falls once she. Is irre
trievable damned.
Or, possibly, Sophonisba's theory is
still more subtle and is Jinked up with
the Calvinistic theory of fore-ordination,
which declares that the destinies
of all men and women are settled by
a cold and unchangeable God long
before their birth.
' Still, Sophonisba has a remedy-for
this lamentable state of affairs. Or,
if not aremedy, at least a mustard
plaster
''"It is the duty of the state," she
continuedT"to pay such girl's board
in sone respectable home, while she
is being trained to proficiency in
some industrial line."
Granting the correctness of So
phonisba's theory that all-girls who
go wrong are foreordained Ato dam
nation, one can conoeive that the
'"respectable families" she mentions
might strenuously object to having
such creatures quartered-on them by
..the state. '
On the other hand, think how the
- factory and department store, own
ers, who now are grinding out. the
J lives of GOODA women by paying
. 7
them starvation wages, would jump
at Sophonisba's plan.
Supposing, for instance, the State
street department store girls were
organized. Supposing they called a
strike on Marshall Field & Co. to
force that "greatest commercial in
stitution in Chicago" to pay its girls
with.something else than the "honor"
of working for Marshall Field & Cq
Wouldn't it be nice if that weasel
souled millionaire, John G. Shedd,
and the 'Dapper Jimmie Simpson
could call up the Department of De
linquent Girls arid Women at Spring
field, and say:
"Our girls have gone out on strike.
Send us a few thdusand trained de
linquent saleswomen to take their
places."
Of course, there might be a come
back for the male sex if Sophonisba's
plan were put into operation and the
women got the ballot
The women might get a law passed
that would provide for every delin
quent MAN, delinquent in this case
being understood to 'mean any man
who patronized a delinquent woman.
The women might have all these
delinquent men sent out to "respect
able families while being trained to
proficiency in some industrial Un&.
Don't know that this would be such
a bad idea. It wouldn't be half bad
to see some of the sons of our "best
families" being boarded out by the
state and being taught "proficiency in
some industrial line."
o o
OH, YES, SHE KNEW!
Old Salt Yes, mum; them's men-o'-war.
" Sweet Young Thing How inter
esting! And what are the little ones
just in front?
Old Salt Oh, them's just tugs,
mum.
Sweet Young Thing Oh, yes, of
course.; .tugs-of-war. I've heard of
them. - .